Third baseman Travis Shaw slugged the first two home runs of his major league career and had four RBIs as the Boston Red Sox overcame another shaky start from Joe Kelly in an 11-7 win over the Tampa...

Parkland Medical cited for success in wound care

DERRY — Parkland Medical Center has stayed at the forefront of advanced wound care in recent years and was recently named a Center of Distinction for its successful work in the field.

The Parkland Center for Wound Healing & Hyperbaric Medicine received an award from Healogics Inc., the nation’s largest provider of advanced wound care services, according to a news release.

The Parkland Center achieved outstanding clinical outcomes for 12 consecutive months, including patient satisfaction over 92 percent, a minimum 91 percent wound healing rate within median days to heal, and other quality outcomes. There were 511 centers eligible for the Center of Distinction award, only 157 achieved the honor, and only two in New Hampshire, the release said.

Dr. Peter Sebeny, an infectious diseases and internal medicine physician, said the center takes a multidisciplinary approach to treating wounds, which is one of the reasons why it won the award.

“So I think that’s what really has allowed us to have excellent healing rates, excellent patient satisfaction rates, is because of that multi-disciplinary approach,” Sebeny said. “Some of these wounds require seeing several specialists, whether it be a general surgeon, a podiatrist, infectious diseases or vascular surgery. We can facilitate that pretty quickly, which I think improves our outcomes.”

Wound care has changed dramatically over the years and no longer involves just using traditional methods such as gauze, Sebeny said. Many primary care doctors, and other physicians, don’t receive training on wound care, he added.

“The way wounds are managed is not what our mothers told us,” Sebeny said.

A lot has changed in terms of the types of dressings that are used and whether or patients are candidates for skin grafts or skin substitutes.

The center is working with such cutting-edge wound care treatments as semi-synthetic skin substitutes and more humanized skin substitutes, including one that is made out of placental cells, Sebeny said.

Sometimes these types of treatments are used for chronic ulcers related to complications from diabetes that aren’t healing, Sebeny said. And some are also used for vascular injuries.

Some patients are also candidates for the center’s hyperbaric oxygen treatment chamber, he said.

The chamber basically provides 100 percent inhaled oxygen at a higher pressure, he said. The hyper oxygenation of tissue helps with wound healing.

Sebeny said a lot of patients aren’t familiar with clinics like the center, but that is changing.

“Once patients come to us and we heal them, boy, we get a lot of business just by word of mouth,” Sebeny said. “It’s really true; we have great patient outcomes.”